[GodOfReader:] Done!
---
The general ahead, who called himself Gyoubu Masataka Oniwa, was currently radiating an overwhelming aura, looking as if he could swallow mountains and rivers.
"Holy crap, are you kidding me?!" Jenny was completely stunned by the sudden situation before her. What kind of god was this, actually capable of galloping across the waves?!
As the figures of the man and his horse in the distance drew closer and closer to her, Jenny finally noticed that it was one thing for General Gyoubu to be fully armored, but he was actually wielding a halberd nearly three meters long in his hands!
"What the f*ck?!" Jenny was severely startled. Looking at her own ancient swordsman attire, an utterly unbelievable thought sprang up in her mind. "Lucien, you don't expect me to fight him, do you?!"
"What else?" Lucien's voice rang out. "Draw your sword, Sis. It's time for a one-on-one duel."
"You call this a one-on-one duel?"
Jenny complained verbally, but she still immediately looked at the sword at her waist. Gritting her teeth, she pulled it out in one swift motion, letting out a sharp shing!
The sword in Jenny's hand gleamed with rippling light under the sun, looking incredibly sharp. However, the blade's length was barely over a meter long. How could she possibly fight the general in front of her with this!
Whether it was aura, weaponry, or size, she was completely outclassed in every aspect!
"Are you kidding me? How am I supposed to win against that!!" Jenny shouted in a total breakdown.
"Give me your life!" However, Gyoubu didn't care about Jenny in the slightest. Raising his long halberd high into the air, he clamped his legs around the horse's belly. "Let's go, Onikage!!!"
The fiery steed beneath him, named Onikage, neighed as if responding to Gyoubu's words. In the next moment, man and horse charged ferociously toward Jenny!
At the same time, Jenny quickly reacted. Facing the general's incoming slash, she skillfully executed her signature combo once again.
She swiftly took off her helmet and severed the sensory link. Jenny leaped off the VR platform in one smooth, continuous motion!
After jumping off the VR platform, Jenny didn't stop for a second, charging straight toward Lucien on the other side of the living room in one breath.
She was ready to fight Lucien to the death!
She didn't dare fight that Gyoubu Masataka Oniwa, but fighting his creator was absolutely no problem!
"Master, Jenny is approaching you with malicious intent," Gaia suddenly warned.
"Hm?" Hearing this, Lucien reacted quickly. Taking off his VR headset, he saw that Jenny had indeed already rushed right up to his face.
"You bastard, I'll kill you."
Jenny let out a loud roar and immediately tackled Lucien onto the sofa behind him. Straddling him in a W-sit position, she began unleashing a barrage of small, soft punches onto him.
"I was wrong, I was wrong, Sis!" Although Jenny's punches had absolutely no force behind them, he still had to put on an act. Lucien could only beg for mercy loudly. "Stop hitting me, stop! I didn't lie to you! Didn't you say you could handle it as long as there were no monsters? I didn't arrange for any monsters!!!"
"That was barely any different from a monster. A massive guy riding a horse and wielding a giant weapon, and you still wanted me to fight him?! Are you even human!!!" Jenny scolded furiously.
"I told you it's just an asset! It automatically disappears once it gets within one meter of you. There wouldn't even be any hit feedback!" Lucien was still trying to defend himself.
"I'm not listening, I'm not listening!"
"..."
And so, Lucien endured countless light punches from Jenny. The two playfully fought like children as per their usual routine before quickly calming down. "So, Lucien, why did you make so many game assets all at once? Shouldn't games be made slowly, one by one?" Jenny asked curiously.
Good grief, in just a little over ten minutes, she had instantly experienced the content of three different games, and every single one of them was insanely thrilling.
"The reason I made these game assets first was just to test my new gaming platform," Lucien explained.
"Gaming platform?" Jenny paused.
"Exactly, a gaming platform is my current next goal," Lucien said.
Now that he had already bought a car and a house, it was time to move the schedule for building a gaming platform forward.
It wasn't that he cared about the small revenue cut that Steam took from him. Lucien's main reason was that he wanted to create a platform under his own banner, which would also be much easier to manage.
Otherwise, if he only provided games while relying on someone else's servers, the playability of any multiplayer game he developed in the future would depend entirely on the platform's network quality. That would be quite restrictive.
Rather than relying on others, it was better to handle everything himself.
He had money and the System anyway. What couldn't he do?
Moreover, just as Lucien had mentioned before, the platform he wanted to develop would be unlike any previous platform. Instead, he wanted to build a platform similar to the OASIS. The platform would be equivalent to a virtual world; anything you could do in reality, you could do within the platform.
Even things you couldn't do in reality, you could still do within the platform!
Thinking of all this, a specific game surfaced in Lucien's mind.
GTA!
Also known as Grand Theft Auto, it was an open-world game set in a modern city. It was famous for its incredibly high degree of freedom, allowing players to do whatever they wanted within a city.
If he modified GTA slightly and added some new maps, using it as the base for the [New World] gaming platform sounded very nice indeed!
Just like how Lucien played within Subnautica, people could play other games inside the game.
This way, card games like Yu-Gi-Oh! wouldn't even need to be standalone releases; they could be fully integrated into the gaming platform. Just imagine, a duelist who loved playing cards wandering around in GTA encounters another like-minded duelist, and they immediately throw down for a duel right there on the spot. It would be absolutely perfect.
This was exactly the same as the plot in Yu-Gi-Oh!, where duelists could battle at any random location within the city without any restrictions.
Faced with such a brand-new gaming platform, probably not a single player would be able to resist. Even people who had never played games before would probably be tempted to join in.
By that time, to all the gamers around the world, Lucien could truly be considered a literal God of Creation.
Just thinking about it made Lucien's heart surge. Wouldn't a platform like this be infinitely better than Valves and Riot, which had long since devolved into a glorified League of Legends launcher?!
However, while the idea was great, the difficulty of actually realizing it was quite high.
Doing it this way meant the platform's file size alone might reach several terabytes. With the amount of points Lucien had currently harvested, it still wasn't enough to pull it off.
He could only take it step by step. First, he'd put together a simplified gaming platform and go from there.
"Then, Lucien, where is this platform you're going to make?" Jenny asked again. "What you just logged onto was the [New World] gaming platform," Lucien replied. "The Gaia AI manages the entire platform. Any game listed on the [New World] platform can be experienced for a few minutes for free first, just like you did, before deciding whether to buy it."
Aside from that, the rule on Steam where you could refund a game if your playtime was under two hours would also be implemented on the [New World] platform.
Incredibly consumer-friendly, wasn't it?
"I see..." Jenny understood and nodded thoughtfully. "Setting the gaming platform itself as VR software... that's something that's never been done before."
"Heh, it's far from being that simple. Other people's platforms are just platforms, but my platform is a real world," Lucien answered with a smile. He took out his phone again and dialed the bank manager's number, intending to ask the manager to help him find a channel to purchase a batch of dedicated servers.
To build his own gaming platform, servers were absolutely indispensable. After all, he needed to set up the network and everything else himself.
Generally speaking, supporting a global network required a massive number of servers. To ensure players all over the world could play games smoothly, companies would deploy servers in various locations across the globe. This required a considerable investment of funds and land.
But Lucien didn't need to do that. After all, he had the black technology of the System in his hands. He could just buy the servers, use the Simulator to modify them, and give them a massive upgrade to turn them into black technology servers. That should be enough to guarantee a smooth network connection for global players. However, this would likely consume a massive chunk of his points.
For the sake of his grand ambitions, Lucien began executing his plan step by step.
During this time, thanks to the efforts of the players, the story progression of Subnautica also began advancing at a rapid pace.
The various regions of that mysterious water world were being uncovered by players one by one.
The Kelp Forest, the Grand Reef, the Blood Kelp Zone, and more appeared before the players in succession. The distinctly different scenery in each area made players completely lose themselves in the exploration.
Benjamin was the most fanatical player among them all. He had given up on streaming for the time being, returning to his roots as a professional gaming content creator, and began playing the game day and night.
He had only one goal: to become the first player in the world to clear Subnautica!
Currently, there were no playthrough videos of Subnautica on the market. As a gaming uploader and a massive die-hard fan of New World, Benjamin wanted to give it a shot!
Furthermore, Benjamin was among the first batch of players in the world to play Subnautica. This was a uniquely advantageous position, and he couldn't let it slip by!
After all, he was also the first in the world to clear Silent Hill P.T. If he could become the first to clear Subnautica as well, then he would be a back-to-back champion!
A two-time champion!
Holding onto this belief, Benjamin poured his heart and soul into the game. Finally, after working tirelessly day and night, he truly managed to clear Subnautica once again!
Amidst his excitement, he didn't forget his actual job. He edited his gameplay footage and immediately uploaded a video across major video websites: [World Premiere: The Complete Subnautica Walkthrough!] The moment this video was published, it once again shocked the world.
[Holy crap, Benjamin, it's him again!]
[He took the first blood for Silent Hill P.T. and now he took the first blood for Subnautica too!]
[Damn, this guy specializes in taking the developers virginity, doesn't he!?]
This title instantly attracted a massive influx of netizens, and viewers poured endlessly into the video to watch.
"Alright, after grinding for almost a week straight, I have finally lived up to expectations and cleared Subnautica!" Benjamin's voiceover rang out. "The story's ending is also extremely touching, so let's officially begin now!"
As his voice faded, a deep blue expanse of water appeared within Benjamin's field of vision.
"Chat, the place I'm currently at is the Anchor Pod Zone, nine hundred meters below sea level!"
"This place has glowing plants named Anchor Pods, so even at a depth of nine hundred meters, you can see your surroundings crystal clear! Moreover, this place is very close to the Disease Research Facility, and the surrounding resources are relatively abundant, so I chose to build my shelter in this area!"
"I also suggest that players who want to clear the game build their shelters here. I'll mark the coordinates of the shelter for everyone at the end of the video."
"Besides that, I also managed to build the Cyclops!"
As Benjamin spoke, he turned around, and the viewers immediately saw a large, gleaming submarine!
It was none other than the Cyclops!
[Image:]
The Cyclops had a somewhat rounded overall appearance, over sixty meters in length, with a pure white metal exterior, resembling a giant cylinder.
[Wow, insane!]
[Is this the Cyclops? Damn, it looks almost as big as a Leviathan!]
[I haven't even built the Cyclops yet, and he's not only built it but cleared the game!]
The viewers were full of praise. It should be noted that during this period, they had yet to hear of anyone successfully building the Cyclops.
This was the very first time they were seeing it, right here on Benjamin's Youtube channel.
What was even more terrifying was that Benjamin had not only built the Cyclops, but had even cleared the entire game!
This was all thanks to Benjamin's intense grinding, coupled with the fact that his game progress had always been ahead of everyone else, which allowed him to accomplish this feat.